
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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William Henry Venable 



AN APPRECIATION 



Read before The CAncinnati Schoolmasters Club 

October 9, 1920 

with 

Selections from the Author's Works 



1921 



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— ■ — ■ — 



Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2011 with funding from 
The Library of Congress 



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"Thrice-happy City, dearest to my heart, 
Who, showering benison upon her own, 
Endows her opulent material mart 
With lavish purchase from each ransacked zone, 
Yet ne'er forgot exchange of rarer kind, 
By trade-winds from all ports of Wisdom blown — 

Imperishable merchandise of Mind: 
Man may not live by bread alone, 
But every word of God shall be made known!" 

— Cincinnati: A Civic Ode 



Printed and Bound by Pupils 
of the Lafayette Bloom Junior High School 
Cincinnati 



WILLIAM HENRY VENABLE 




AN APPRECIATION 

READ BEFORE THE CINCINNATI SCHOOLMASTERS 

CLUB, OCTOBER 9, 1920 



♦:♦ »s *.* 



WITH SELECTIONS FROM THE AUTHOR'S WORKS 







c\Z^ 



Copyright, 1904, by 
Dodd, Mead and Company 

Copyright, 1909, by 
William Henry Venable 

Copyright, 1912, by 
Stewart and Kidd Company 

Copyright, 1921, by 
The Cincinnati Schoolmasters Club 

All Rights Reserved 



CI.A611626 



*Vv. 



WILLIAM HENRY VENABLE 

\ I 7ILLIAM HENRY VENABLE, — educator, historian, novelist, poet, — son of 
™ ™ William and Hannah (Baird) Venable, was born April 29, 1836, on a farm 
not far from Waynesville, Warren County, Ohio. His ancestry on the paternal side 
was English, remotely Norman, while on the mother's side it was Scotch-English, 
with a qualifying strain of Dutch. His father, William Venable, was a Quaker and 
an abolitionist, and was, successively, a surveyor, a teacher, and a farmer. 

In 1843 the family moved to a farm near Ridgeville, a hamlet located about 
seven miles north of Lebanon, Ohio, within a short distance of the present "Ven- 
able Station." Here, amid conditions only one remove from those of pioneer life, 
the subject of this sketch passed the formative years of his boyhood. 

Stimulated by a home environment of books and culture, the ambitious youth 
early outgrew the limits of learning in the Ridgeville country school, and, eager 
in the pursuit of higher education, he sought the advantages of collegiate training in 
the South-Western State Normal School, at Lebanon, Ohio, where he rapidly 
acquired an academic knowledge of science, language, literature, and history, soon 
winning distinction by his versatile scholarship. 

While yet in his teens Mr. Venable was a frequent contributor to local news- 
papers and he began the important historical investigations which later estab- 
lished his reputation as the foremost authority in all that pertains to the literary 
annals of the Ohio Valley. 

After six years of experience as student and teacher in the South-Western 
State Normal School, Mr. Venable was called to the principalship of Vernon County 
Academy, Vernon, Indiana, which he conducted for about a year. During his resi- 
dence in the Hoosier State he took an active part in educational affairs and was 
one of the editors of the Indiana School Journal. 

Mr. Venable was married on December 30, 1861, to Miss Mary Ann Vater, 
of Indianapolis, and in September of the following year he removed to Cincinnati, 
where he entered upon a wider field of professional labor in the famous Chicker- 
ing Institute, a classical and scientific academy with which he was connected for 
nearly a quarter of a century, and of which, in 1 88 1 , he became the principal and pro- 
prietor. Disposing of his interest in this school in 1886, he devoted the next three 
years to the completion of long-delayed literary undertakings and to lecturing in 
many towns and cities in Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and West Vir- 
ginia. His services as a public speaker were in constant demand, the most popular 
of his lectures during this period being the addresses entitled "Down South Before 
the War" and "The Coming Man," and the celebrated dramatic impersonation, 
"Tom Tad, or the Humor and Pathos of Boy Life." From 1889 to 1900 he was 
engaged in public educational work in Cincinnati, where, in addition to his far- 
sighted constructive labors as head of the department of English, first in Hughes 
and later in Walnut Hills High School, he exercised a far-reaching influence on 
educational ideals and methods through the publication of a volume of pedagog- 
ical essays entitled "Let Him First Be a Man," and of a series of textbooks in Eng- 
lish poetry, which for more than twenty years have been an inspiring aid to 
teachers in thousands of American schools. 



Pas.e Five 



WILLIAM HENRY VENABLE 



After his retirement from active professional life, in 1900, Mr. Venable de- 
voted his energies exclusively to literature, producing many important works in 
prose and in verse. The wide-ranging list of his published volumes includes the 
following titles: A School History of the United States, 1872 ; June on the Miami, 
and Other Poems, 1872; The School Stage, 1873; The Amateur Actor, 1874; 
Dramas and Dramatic Scenes, 1874; The Teacher's Dream, 1881; Melodies of 
the Heart, Songs of Freedom and Faith, and Other Poems, 1885; Footprints of 
the Pioneers, 1888; The Teacher's Dream, and Other Songs of School Days, 
1889; Beginnings of Literary Culture in the Ohio Valley, 1891; John Hancock, 
Educator, 1892; Let Him First Be a Man, and Other Essays, 1894; Poems of 
William Haines Lytle, edited, with Memoir, 1894; The Last Flight, 1894; Tales 
from Ohio History, 1896; Selections from the Poems of Burns, 1898; Selections 
from the Poems of Byron, 1 898; Selections from the Poems of Wordsworth, 1898; 
Santa Claus and the Black Cat, 1898; A Dream of Empire, or The House of Blen- 
nerhassett, 1901; Tom Tad, 1902; Saga of the Oak, and Other Poems, 1904; 
Cincinnati: A Civic Ode, 1907; Floridian Sonnets, 1909; A Buckeye Boyhood, 
1911; June on the Miami: An Idyl, 1912; A History of Christ Church, Cincin- 
nati, 1917. 

Mr. Venable spent his entire life, excepting for a single year, in Ohio, where 
with tongue and pen he devoted himself to the higher interests of his time, work- 
ing especially to promote the cause of liberal education and literary culture. He 
was identified with many teachers' institutes and associations and he was a mem- 
ber of numerous educational and literary societies. He was the organizer and the 
first president of the Cincinnati Society for Political Education, 1880; the first 
president of the Teachers' Club of Cincinnati, 1891; president of the Western Asso- 
ciation of Writers, 1895; an honorary member of the Historical and Philosophical 
Society of Ohio; a life member of the Ohio State Archaeological and Historical 
Society; an honorary member of the Cincinnati Schoolmasters Club and of the 
Literary Club of Cincinnati ; and a member of the Authors' Club, of London, England. 

As a public speaker Mr. Venable rendered notable service to the State, de- 
livering historical and commemorative addresses on many important civic occa- 
sions, including the Jefferson County Centennial, in 1897, the Lebanon Centen- 
nial, in 1902, and the Ohio Centennial, in 1903. 

In recognition of his great and varied contributions to the higher life of the 
community and nation, Mr. Venable, in 1864, received from De Pauw University 
the honorary degree of Master of Arts; in 1886 he received from Ohio University 
the degree of Doctor of Laws; and in 1917 he received from the University of Cin- 
cinnati the highest honor within its gift, the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters. 

Mr. Venable's literary activity ceased only with his death, which occurred on 
July 6, 1920, the author being then in his eighty-fifth year. Among the unpub- 
lished manuscripts left with his son and literary executor are a revised edition 
of his "Beginnings of Literary Culture in the Ohio Valley," a volume of essays 
and addresses entitled "The Utility of the Ideal," and a complete edition of his 
collected poems. 



Page Six 



AN APPRECIATION 



No sketch of the life of William Henry Venable is complete which does not 
record his conspicuous achievement in history, fiction, and verse. Few books 
have exerted a wider influence than his "History of the United States," which 
for many years was a standard textbook in schools throughout the country. Refer- 
ring to this volume President Hayes wrote: "With such textbooks our boys ought 
to be wiser than their fathers, and with half the labor." Mr. Venable's greatest 
historical work, "Beginnings of Literary Culture in the Ohio Valley," is recognized 
by all authorities as the most important book ever produced relating to the rise 
and early growth of literary and educational institutions in the Middle-West. His 
popular romance, "A Dream of Empire, or The House of Blennerhassett," — the 
one great novel of the Burr-Blennerhassett episode, — not only enjoys the distinc- 
tion of having been a "best seller," of its day, but has been pronounced "one of 
the strongest, most gracefully constructed, and most captivating of modern historical 
romances." Equal praise has been accorded to the author's "Tom Tad," which, 
in the opinion of the Troy (N. Y.) Times, "deserves to be ranked with Mark Twain's 
Tom Sawyer' and 'Huckleberry Finn.' " 

Numerous and important as are his writings in many departments of prose 
literature, it is as a poet that Mr. Venable is most widely known. Conspicuous 
among his earlier poems is "The Teacher's Dream," which for more than sixty 
years has held a secure place in our national literature as "one of the household 
and schoolhouse lays of the people." Representative of his later work is the 
famous lyric, "My Catbird." This remarkable production, described by an em- 
inent critic as "the laureate song of our universal songster," was characterized by 
the poet Coates Kinney as "the most completely inspired poem of its kind in the 
English language;" while Mr. Venable's charming pastoral, "June on the Miami," 
has been hailed as "a worthy companion of the glorious winter piece of Whittier 
—'Snow-Bound,' — as faithful a description of the month it celebrates in Ohio as 
that is a domestic home picture of winter in Massachusetts." 

Speaking of the author's verse in general, and in particular of the volume 
"Floridian Sonnets," Miss Edith M. Thomas, the foremost of living American poets 
and a leading representative of the great Ohio group, pays deathless tribute to 
Mr. Venable's genius in the following words: 

"William Henry Venable was rich in earthly years and in the garner of the 
excellent work, his bequest to us. He indeed 'knew to sing and build the lofty 
rhyme ;' to 'sing,' as witness many a lov ely lyric that 'simply tells the most heart-easing 
things,' and 'to build,' as truly, 'the lofty rhyme.' One finds the former, in many 
a direct human appeal, in his 'Saga of the Oak,' and the latter in his 'Floridian 
Sonnets,' where the movement of the verse is like a grand adagio music, — or 
like a structure built, magically, by inevitable Thought itself, as much as by the 
use of the 'inevitable word.' The greatness of the soul behind the work is at all 
times apparent. The Common Man,' 'Sursum Corda,' 'Conscious Evolution,' are 
the output of a wide-sweeping consciousness, alive both to the human and the di- 
vine. Herbert Spencer would have rejoiced in 'The Unknowable,' and 'Toleration' 
could go straight to Marcus Aurelius. The elegiac sonnets (only they have some 
mournful triumphant movement— like Beethoven's March)— to Coates Kinney, are 



Page Seven 



WILLIAM HENRY VENABLE 



of the noblest that Friendship and Death have called forth in our English.— 
Would that the voice of comradely greeting, of grateful appraisal, might follow 
and reach this true singer of fair Ohio, whom not only she must mourn, but also 
America herself, with a doubt if he has left his peer in those fields of song where 
his Muse adventured, with so happy a conquest of all therein outspread. I am 
thinking of 'June on the Miami,' and of many a briefer idyllic presentment of 
scenes to which my heart is no stranger." 

While listening to this brief sketch of the life of William Henry Venable, 
those of you who knew him personally must have been struck by the contrast 
between the physical frailty of the man and the imposing grandeur of his work. And 
in fact his conception of life was quite a contrast to that of most men. Life, to most 
of us, is a continual struggle against the forces without and the passions within ; 
at times we prevail only to succumb, again we fail only to renew the combat. On 
the grave of a thousand disappointed hopes we devise new schemes, only to have 
them pass away, even as the flower of the field, or as the wind passing over the 
grave of man; there only the contest ends, there only all distinctions are leveled, 
making the whole world kin. 

How different was the conception of life to William Henry Venable. Instead 
of the dominant force impelling to action being a divine discontent, to him it was 
an implicit confidence in the Love of the Creator and the loveliness of His works; 
instead of an atmosphere of doubt and discord, his life was permeated by calm 
serenity and fervid faith. His was a spirit so gentle and a view so lofty that the 
strife and struggles of the flesh could not endure. So sweet and soothing was 
his presence that one felt a touch of that harmony which pervades the sanctuary 
of nature; his indeed was the peace that passeth understanding. 

He who wrote "The Teacher's Dream" must have realized to a wonderful de- 
gree the hope that thrills every teacher— the hope to live in the hearts of his 
pupils. Few realize as did he the glory which comes with the knowledge that 
the seed implanted in the furrows of Time is quickening into life and happiness. 

How many of us must acclaim him rabbi — meaning "my teacher," — a term 
used by the Hebrew of old to express the highest degree of love and reverence 
which one being may bear another. 

And even in those last years when the sun of life retreats "and evening shad- 
ows round us hover," even then were his days filled with joy and gladness. Ever 
striving to "do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God," he viewed long 
before his material sun had set the dawning of that day in which the light of truth, 
brighter than the visible sun, shall encircle the earth. And his life was thrilled 
with its warmth and gladness. Truly his memory shall be a blessing to them that 
cherish it. 



Page Eight 



THE TEACHER'S DREAM 

The weary teacher sat alone, 

While twilight gathered on ; 
And not a sound was heard around, 

The boys and girls were gone. 

The weary teacher sat alone, 

Unnerved and pale was he; 
Bowed by a yoke of care he spoke 

In sad soliloquy : 

"Another round, another round 

Of labor thrown away, 
Another chain of toil and pain 

Dragged through a tedious day. 

"Of no avail is constant zeal, 

Love's sacrifice is loss, 
The hopes of morn, so golden, turn, 

Each evening, into dross. 

"I squander on a barren field 

My strength, my life, my all; 
The seeds I sow will never grow, 

They perish where they fall." 

He sighed, and low upon his hands 

His aching brow he prest, 
And like a spell upon him fell 

A soothing sense of rest. 

Ere long he lifted up his face, 

When, on his startled view, 
The room by strange and sudden change 

To vast proportions grew! 

It seemed a senate-hall, and one 
Addressed a listening throng; 

Each burning word all bosoms stirred, 
Applause rose loud and long. 

The wildered teacher thought he knew 
The speaker's voice and look, 

"And for his name," said he, "the same 
Is in my record-book." 

The stately senate-hall dissolved, 

A church rose in its place, 
Wherein there stood a man of God 

Dispensing words of grace. 



Page Nine 



THE TEACHER'S DREAM 



And though he heard the solemn voice, 

And saw the beard of gray, 
The teacher's thought was strangely wrought: 

"My yearning heart to-day 

"Wept for this youth whose wayward will 

Against persuasion strove, 
Compelling force, love's last resource, 

To establish laws of love." 

The church, a phantom, vanished soon ; 

What apparition then? 
In classic gloom of alcoved room 

An author plied his pen. 

"My idlest lad !" the master said, 

Filled with a new surprise, 
"Shall I behold his name enrolled 

Among the great and wise?" 

The vision of a cottage home 

Was now through tears descried: 

A mother's face illumed the place 
Her influence sanctified. 

"A miracle! a miracle! 

This matron, well I know, 
Was but a wild and careless child 

Not half an hour ago. 

"Now when she to her children speaks 

Of duty's golden rule, 
Her lips repeat, in accents sweet, 

My words to her at school." 

Dim on the teacher's brain returned 

The humble school-room old; 
Upon the wall did darkness fall, 

The evening air was cold. 

"A dream!" the sleeper, waking, said, 

Then paced along the floor, 
And, whistling slow and soft and low, 

He locked the schoolhouse door. 

His musing heart was reconciled 

To love's divine delays: 
"The bread forth cast returns at last, 

Lo, after many days!" 

1856 



Page Ten 



MY CATBIRD 

A Capriccio 

Nightingale I never heard, 

Nor the skylark, poet's bird; 

But there is an aether-winger 

So surpasses every singer, 

(Though unknown to lyric fame,) 

That at morning, or at nooning, 

When I hear his pipe a-tuning, 

Down I fling Keats, Shelley, Wordsworth, — 

What are all their songs of birds worth? 

All their soaring 

Souls' outpouring? 

When my Mimus Carolinensis, 

(That's his Latin name,) 

When my warbler wild commences 

Song's hilarious rhapsody, 

Just to please himself and me! 

Primo Cantante! 

Scherzo! Andante! 

Piano, pianissimo ! 

Presto, prestissimo! 

Hark! are there nine birds or ninety and nine? 

And now a miraculous gurgling gushes 

Like nectar from Hebe's Olympian bottle, 

The laughter of tune from a rapturous throttle! 

Such melody must be a hermit-thrush's! 

But that other caroler, nearer, 

Outrivaling rivalry with clearer 

Sweetness incredibly fine! 

Is it oriole, redbird, or bluebird, 

Or some strange, un-Auduboned new bird? 

All one, sir, both this bird and that bird, 

The whole flight are all the same catbird! 

The whole visible and invisible choir you see 

On one lithe twig of yon green tree. 

Flitting, feathery Blondel! 

Listen to his rondel! 

To his lay romantical! 

To his sacred canticle! 

Hear him lilting, 



Page Eleven 



MY CATBIRD 



See him tilting 

His saucy head and tail, and fluttering 

While uttering 

All the difficult operas under the sun 

Just for fun; 

Or in tipsy revelry, 

Or at love devilry, 

Or, disdaining his divine gift and art, 

Like an inimitable poet 

Who captivates the world's heart 

And don't know it. 

Hear him lilt! 

See him tilt! 

Then suddenly he stops, 

Peers about, flirts, hops, 

As if looking where he might gather up 

The wasted ecstasy just spilt. 

From the quivering cup 

Of his bliss overrun. 

Then, as in mockery of all 

The tuneful spells that e'er did fall 

From vocal pipe, or evermore shall rise, 

He snarls, and mews, and flies. 



A DIAMOND 

Upon the breast of stolid earth 

This immemorial stone, 
A jewel of Golconda's worth, 
In sovran beauty shone. 

My lady for a moment bore 
The gem upon her brow, 

A moment on her bosom wore- 
'Tis worth the Orient now. 



Page Twelve 



FOUNDERS OF OHIO 

April, 1888 

The footsteps of a hundred years 

Have echoed since o'er Braddock's Road 

Bold Putnam and the Pioneers 
Led History the way they strode. 

On wild Monongahela stream 

They launched the Mayflower of the West, 
A perfect State their civic dream, 

A new New World their pilgrim quest. 

When April robed the Buckeye trees 
Muskingum's bosky shore they trod; 

They pitched their tents and to the breeze 
Flung freedom's banner, thanking God. 

As glides the Oyo's solemn flood 

So fleeted their eventful years; 
Resurgent in their children's blood, 

They still live on — the Pioneers. 

Their fame shrinks not to names and dates 
On votive stone, the prey of time: 

Behold where monumental States 
Immortalize their lives sublime! 



SONG 

(From "June on the Miami") 
I know 'tis late, but let me stay, 
For night is tenderer than day; 
Sweet love, dear love, I can not go, 
Dear love, sweet love, I love thee so. 
The birds in leafy hiding sleep; 
Shrill katydids their vigil keep; 
The woodbine breathes a fragrance rare 
Upon the dewy, languid air ; 
The fireflies twinkle in the vale, 
The river looms in moonshine pale, 
And look! a meteor's dreamy light 
Streams mystic down the solemn night! 
Ah, life glides swift, like that still fire,— 
How soon our throbbing joys expire! 
Who can be sure the present kiss 
Is not his last? Make all of this. 
I know 'tis late, sweet love, I know, 
Dear love, sweet love, I love thee so. 



Page Thirteen 



THE COMMON MAN 



Fantastic mist obscurely fills 

The hollows of Miami hills; 

Heardst thou? I heard, or fear I heard, 

Vague twitters of some wakeful bird; 

The winged hours are swift indeed! 

Why makes the jealous morn such speed? 

This rose thou wearst, may I not take 

For passionate remembrance' sake? 

Press with thy lips its crimson heart; 

Yes, blushing rose, we must depart; 

A rose can not return a kiss — 

I pay its due with this, and this; 

The stars grow faint, they soon will die, 

But love faints not nor fails. — Good-bye! 

Unhappy joy — delicious pain — 

We part in love, we meet again! 

Good-bye! — the morning dawns — I go; 

Dear love, sweet love, I love thee so. 



THE COMMON MAN 

Who is the Common Man? By whom defined? 

How his ingredient nature estimate? 

By what alembic differentiate 
The universal from the special kind, 
Or what potential slumbers in each mind? 

The great how little, and the smallest great! 

Was not the Savior to the middle rate 
By the proud rulers of the world assigned? 
All men are men; no man is more: bound all 

In one democracy of blood, the same; 
Coequal heritors of sense and soul; 
Whirled round diurnal on this earthly ball, 

Resolved to common dust from which they came, 
Brethren alike in origin and goal. 



SURSUM CORDA 

Here on this barren fragment unreclaimed 
Of coral reef o'ersurged by tidal brine, 
Shifting each fluctuant hour its border-line, 

I did not think to hear, loud-clarion-famed, 

Or whispered to my solitude unblamed, 
Rumor of Politics; but o'er the shine 
Of watery waste, and continental fine, 

Sounded the Nations and great names were named! 

Then I rejoiced with an exceeding awe 
And the religious rapture patriots know, 

Who in their love of country love the Race, 

Enjoining equal privilege and law! 
A Citizen! a Man! how can I go 

Away from Home, beyond my People's place? 



Page Fourteen 



"THOUGHTS THAT BREATHE" 

(From Mr. Venable's prose writings) 

"There is no color and no sex in freedom. Give every race, and every indi- 
vidual of every race, an equal chance,— a square deal,— the glorious liberty of the sons 
of God." 

"Freedom is the atmosphere and sunshine of the soul, vitalizing and develop- 
ing its healthy growth and perfect flowering, as physical air and light unfold and 
beautify the rose." 

"Individual peoples, and individual persons, seem to lead the advance of civil- 
ization, as particular waves precede the general tide. But the tide comes in at last." 

"The reign of Thor is drawing slowly but surely to its close. 'Knock-out ar- 
guments' and 'shot-gun policies' shall go to the museum with the rack and the iron 
boot." 

"That which we call 'agitation,' or discussion, whether by tongue or type, is the 
true means of modern warfare." 

"Man is distinguished above the beast, and the learned man above the boor, 
by the use of language. The mind is his arsenal, — his ammunition, a vocabulary. 
His squadrons are the serried sciences; his ranks, embattled ideas; his banners, 
far-streaming truth." 

"No person is more likely to be 'behind the times' than he who is ignorant 
of the great ideas and achievements of antiquity." 

"Perhaps a man's most original thoughts are those he is least conscious of 
evolving Originality is the vitalization of the mind's food; it is the last pro- 
cess of mental digestion." 

"Words are deeds. He who speaks well, or writes well, does service as 
practical as the sowing of grain, the steering of a ship, or the curing of a wound." 

"Culture aims to secure every true, good, and beautiful thing, mortal and 
immortal, to which man can aspire." 

"Lincoln said the Civil War developed him. Browning said, ' Italy was my 
university.' He who is docile, resolute, and industrious, whether in school or out 
of school, will attain." 

"Academic training is at best an apprenticeship, not a mastery." 

"Is not education the supreme science of life, and conduct its application?" 

"Life has one springtime, one seed time, and no harvest can be gathered where 
no field has been tilled." 

"Here in Ohio are Eldorado and the Golden Gate." 

"Some energy, divine or human, has worked hitherto, and still works, in the 
'paragon of animals,' for his melioration." 

"Travail goes to the birth of Minerva,— throes of the brain." 

"Every earnest soul of vast purpose sooner or later enters into the gloom of 
its own peculiar Gethsemane." 

"There is a noble discontent which sometimes stirs a community to great action." 



Page Fifteen 



'THOUGHTS THAT BREATHE" 



"Acts of Congress and decisions of courts are only marks upon the barome- 
ter scale of Popular Opinion, and serve to indicate the state of the intellectual and 
moral atmosphere." 

"The brick and stone do not make the cathedral; a great imagination builds 
it." 

"Money is, at best, rather a fertilizer than a fruit." 

"That which we call the ideal is the only eternal actual. Is not the body the 
simulacrum and the invisible soul the real existence?" 

"Every literature is indebted to every other literature; all authors are borrow- 
ers and lenders; and the commerce of mind fills the world with its best riches — 
the intellectual wealth of nations." 

"A novel or a poem which is worthless in Ohio can not be good in Massa- 
chusetts or in Alaska, though it may be marketable." 

"They who are young keep the old alive and give them motives. How mis- 
erable the community which is not continually rejuvenated by the blood of its 
best." 

"Be patient and wait! Yes, but also, be impatient and move on. Evolution, 
like the Kingdom of Heaven, is not lo, here, or lo, there, but it is within you." 

"Why do we go to school, asks a wise man, but that we may not need always 
to go to school?" 

"Activity is the price of culture; the intellect must be kept alive by the 
breath of the will." 

"A favorite Ohio idea is crystalized in that saying of Garfield: 'A log in the 
woods, with Mark Hopkins seated on it, is a great university'." 

"He who teaches arithmetic well has taught all mathematics by anticipation. 
Who teaches the First Reader rightly has given his pupil a clue to Shakespeare, 
to Herodotus, to Confucius." 

"What is needed is the juice of the book, not the husk." 

"All that is attempted or done in giving tasks, hearing recitations, advising 
or restraining pupils, should aim at the golden center of the target — conduct." 

"Especially would I impress upon every child the sentiment that the vote is 
sacred. Not even in play should the boy stuff the ballot-box or mock the privi- 
lege of anticipated citizenship." 

"Turn to the map of Ohio and note what it recalls and suggests of significant 
events and mighty men. What is the name of the first county organized in the 
state? Washington. The second? Hamilton. The third? Wayne. The fourth? 
Adams. And the fifth, what? Jefferson. Let your eye travel from county to coun- 
ty and you read such shining names as Warren, Franklin, Putnam, Madison, Mon- 
roe, Green, Knox, Jackson, Harrison. Finds the ambitious boy no meaning, no 
moral, in his geography book? Its very names inspire, and the dry page becomes, 
to intelligent brains and heroic hearts, a very holy bible of patriotism and man- 
liness." 



Page Sixteen 



